Going Out with a Bang

I sat at the bar in between two of my friends who were arguing over where to go next. He, of course opted for the gay bar and she was far less willing to spend another night surrounded by men who were more interested in what she was wearing on her feet than what she had in between her legs. I chose not to get involved; instead I stared at the flat screen T.V. in front of me. A soccer game was playing and as I watched the little brown men with perfect little builds dart across the field I couldn’t help but think of my ex. It had been over a month since we had last spoken and I wasn’t exactly pleased with how things ended. Basically, I found a psychotic amount of photos of him getting chummy with his ex girlfriend and when I asked him about them he simply stopped responding. Professional soccer player, maybe. Professional argument avoider, definitely! In the midst of my commiserating Drake’s ever popular, “Started From the Bottom” came shooting through the surrounding speakers. A song he frequently tweeted by a man (Canadian cripple) he idolized and adored. I gulped down my Makers and slammed the glass on the bar. “Who wants shots?!” And after that everything got kind of foggy.

We ended up at the gay bar because well, my gay friends always win the arguments. They are fantastic at convincing you that “it’s a great idea!” and “Just take another shot..it’s fine!” If only conservative republicans would agree to sit down and have a drink with gays and lesbians then I really think we could get the ball rolling on this whole marriage equality issue.

Needless to say, they make the drinks strong. I watched the bartender flip the bottle upside down until the nozzle faced the floor as she poured whiskey into my glass. The splash of ginger ale she threw in seemed more like a garnish than anything. After two of these I made a sloppy attempt to dance on the bar, but fell. And received an inspirational pep talk from two random girls in the bathroom who assured me that calling him was a bad idea and if he really wanted to talk he would call me. “I don’t even know you, but I know you’re a catch! If he can’t see that than he’s crazy and you do not want to be with a crazy man!” I called him anyway.

I was clumsily shoving my phone back into my purse and attempting to light my cigarette from the wrong end when I caught the attention of the only straight guy at the bar. This is where my memory begins to fade. Apparently I didn’t notice his unibrow or the fact that he was wearing a suit. I definitely don’t recall locking arms with him and announcing that “I FOUND A STRAIGHT ONE AND I’M TAKING HIM WITH ME!” I also don’t really remember insisting he speak spanish to me the entire time we were having sex or getting mad at him afterwards and accusing him of not really being from the Dominican Republic because “Even my Spanish is better than that.”

In the morning I crept out of bed and tried my best not to wake him. I climbed into the shower and exhaled. Sick with hangover, I tried to best to wash whatever was left of my “Latin lover” off of my body. To my horror he was wide awake when I came back into my room. He began speaking to me cheerily and bringing up conversations we had, had the night before. I stared at him for a minute and my mind went blank. Oh my God, what is his name?! I sat still on the edge of my bed and struggled to remember anything about him but there was nothing there. It was no use, he could read it on my face. “You don’t remember much about me do you? That sucks. I remember everything about you.” I have become that douchey guy I always hated. This is my low point.

After he left I opened my laptop and there was some kind of spanish love poem in mid-play. I shuttered and closed it quickly. It had been warm the day before. So warm that my boss had let me leave work early and I was sure that it was going to be a good night. But no night is ever good when you’re trying to forget a person who you can’t stop remembering. I drank because I wanted a distraction. I wanted to kill the part of my brain that couldn’t let him go. Even if that meant losing something really important like my sense of smell or my entire liver. I had also done something else terrible, I used another person in an effort to take my mind off of someone else. Someone who I truly wanted to be with. And sure I can tell my friends that if my ex hadn’t have left me feeling so broken then I wouldn’t have had to anger bang poor Havier, but we all know it wasn’t his fault. I feel like the typical response to a break up is to sleep with someone new, someone random who means nothing. Now that I can speak from experience I can say that that’s potentially the worst thing you can do. Using somebody doesn’t help you feel any less used than it does help you to, “get back out there”. Simply put, break ups suck and the only real way to heal from them is to take it easy and focus on yourself. Although drunken one night stands can sometimes become hilarious stories, the best way to cure heart ache is time, self-discovery, and an entire pint of Ben & Jerry’s.